Myanmar Court Extends Detention of Reuters Journalists

U Wa Lone outside court in Yangon, Myanmar, on Wednesday. He and another Reuters journalist were arrested Dec. 12 while reporting on Rakhine State, site of a military crackdown on ethnic Rohingya.Credit
Reuters

HONG KONG — A court in Myanmar extended the detention of two Reuters journalists for another 14 days, despite international condemnation of their arrests as an attack on press freedom.

The journalists, U Wa Lone, 31, and U Kyaw Soe Oo, 27, were arrested while reporting on Rakhine State, where Myanmar’s military has taken part in a campaign of killings, rape and arson that has sent more than 655,000 Rohingya Muslims fleeing into Bangladesh. The two were charged with violating Myanmar’s Official Secrets Act, a broad colonial-era law that carries a maximum sentence of 14 years.

Mr. Wa Lone and Mr. Kyaw Soe Oo were arrested on Dec. 12 after having obtained photographs from residents of a village in which, the army’s chief said, a mass grave was found.

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U Kyaw Soe Oo, the other journalist, inside a police vehicle as he left court. Both face up to 14 years in prison under a colonial-era law.Credit
Reuters

The arrests came just weeks after a judge sentenced two other foreign journalists, their interpreter and their driver to two months in prison on charges of filming with a drone without official permission. On Tuesday, the police dropped additional charges that were filed in that case, which could pave the way for the release of the four in January.

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Mr. Wa Lone and Mr. Kyaw Soe Oo appeared briefly in court in Yangon, the country’s largest city and former capital, on Wednesday. They were allowed to meet their families for the first time since their arrests.